Such content could be viewed in a web browser on any computer with the Shockwave Player plug-in installed.

Shockwave Player had still not been developed, and the sole means of publishing content remained generating executable applications.

As the Internet became more popular, Macromedia realized the potential for a web-based multimedia platform, and designed Shockwave Player for the leading web browser of the time, Netscape Navigator.

Macromedia Director quickly became the de facto production tool for the multimedia industry.

[7] It was preferred over competing applications due to its range of features, relative ease of use and Director's ability to publish executables for both Apple and Microsoft operating systems.

The early 2000s saw a decline in the usage of Director/Shockwave as most multimedia professionals preferred Macromedia Flash and other competing platforms.

[7] As of 2008, the market position of Director/Shockwave overlapped with Flash to a high degree, the only advantage of Director being its native 3D capabilities.

[7] However, with the release of Flash Player 11, GPU-based 3D rendering was now supported using Stage3D (the underlying API), Away3D or Flare3D (3D game engines).

And after Adobe AIR was released, Flash programs could now be published as native applications, further reducing the need for Director.

[8] Xtras are plug-ins for the Lingo scripting language that enable additional functionality into a Shockwave project.

Xtras are typically used to add file system I/O, hardware integration, and advanced multimedia functions.